Sold as a multi-volume set – the individual volumes are also available for purchase. This two-volume edited collection illuminates the valuable counter-canon of Irish women’s playwriting with forty-two essays written by leading and emerging Irish theatre scholars and practitioners.

IntroductionDavid Clare, Fiona McDonagh & Justine Nakase“There’s no Place like old England”: Space and Identity in Mary Davys’s The Northern Heiress; Or, the Humours of York (1716)Marguérite Corporaal“Some tender scenes demand the melting tear”: Frances Sheridan’s The Discovery (1763) and the Vindication of “Sentimental Comedy”Conrad BrunströmIrish Wit on the London Stage: Elizabeth Griffith’s The Platonic Wife (1765)Clíona Ó GallchoirDeceptive Disabilities in Maria Edgeworth’s The Double Disguise (1786): Irish Patriotism, Consumption, and the Martial Male BodySonja LawrensonReimagining Maria Edgeworth’s The Knapsack (1801) for a Contemporary Young AudienceFiona McDonagh & Marc Mac LochlainnMary Balfour’s Kathleen O’Neil (1814): An Expression or Betrayal of Her Ulster Scots Background?David ClareJustice and the “Triple Goddess” Archetypes in Anna Maria Hall’s Mabel’s Curse (1837)Ciara MoloneyOperas without a Hero: A Comic Trilogy (1876–1879) by Elena Norton and Mary HeyneMark Fitzgerald“Petticoats!—petticoats! petticoats!”: Sartorial Economics in Clotilde Graves’s A Mother of Three (1896)Justine NakaseFrom Gort to Antarctica: Lady Gregory’s Audiences and The Rising of the Moon (1903)Anna PilzLady Gregory’s Grania (1912): Myth and MythologyShirley-Anne Godfrey“You have let the play go to pieces”: Geraldine Cummins and Susanne R. Day’s Fox and Geese (1917) and the Hegemony of the Early Abbey TheatreThomas Conway“Something left over from the Eighteenth Century, undergoing a slow process of decay”: The Impotence of the Ascendancy in Mary Manning’s Youth’s the Season–? (1931)Ruud van den BeukenShape Shifting the Silence: An Analysis of Talk Real Fine, Just Like a Lady (2017) by Amanda Coogan in Collaboration with Dublin Theatre of the Deaf, an Appropriation of Teresa Deevy’s The King of Spain’s Daughter (1935)Úna Kealy & Kate McCarthyThe Premiere Staging of Mount Prospect (1940) by Elizabeth Connor (the Pen Name of Una Troy) at the Abbey TheatreCiara O’DowdCorruption and Socio-Political Tensions in Christine Longford’s Tankardstown (1948)Kevin O’ConnorSocial Class, Space, and Containment in 1950s Ireland: Maura Laverty’s “Dublin Trilogy” (1951–1952)Cathy Leeney & Deirdre McFeelyMáiréad Ní Ghráda’s An Triail/On Trial (1964): Hiding Hypocrisy in Plain SightFeargal WhelanChristina Reid: Acts of Memory in Tea in a China Cup (1983), The Belle of the Belfast City (1989), and My Name, Shall I Tell You My Name (1989)Emilie PineAnne Devlin: Depicting a Gendered Journey: Men and Women on The Long March (1984)Megan W. MinogueA Partial Eclipse: The Role of the Religious in Patricia Burke Brogan’s Eclipsed (1988 / 1992)Patricia O’BeirneCoda – What the Woman Sees: Waking Up to Feminist AestheticsCathy Leeney

'Spanning from the eighteenth-century to the present day, The Golden Thread brings together the work of leading scholars in Irish theatre and women’s writing with that of theatre practitioners to recover the often-hidden contributions of women playwrights. The collection develops a counter-canon of Irish playwrights that examines issues of class, sexuality, and disability.' Colleen English, The New Books Network